Your Retail Connection (Experience, Qualifications)
Twenty-five years of experience designing and implementing customer experience initiatives in retail, and quick-service restaurants. Regular contributor to The Retail Customer Experience and sit on their advisory board.
What Kind of Retail Education Is the Most Important?
If you’re less experienced and already have retail in your blood, you should strongly consider a degree in retail.
If you’ve been in retail a long time (10 years), you probably don’t need a retail degree. Many of them around the country are still pretty basic including lots of ‘standard’ curricula in their programs.
Why You Think Advanced Retail Education Is Important
A college education shapes how you think for the rest of your life. With that in mind, there’s lots to learn about retail—and lots to improve in the way retail works.
By familiarizing yourself not only with retail, but with the disciplines retail needs, you’re assuring yourself of a long and rewarding career. If you want to work ON retail (i.e. make retailing better), you’ll have to look to a degree program or non-retail experience to get the know-how. If you want to work IN retail (i.e. working as an RSA or regional management for example), you don’t really need the college degree (but some extra financial training will be helpful).
Advice
- If you’re technically inclined or know how to think about systems, consider specializing in retail technology and change management. These are two disciplines which, in my opinion, the industry sorely needs. There are so many fabulous products available for retailers to take advantage of but their business models won’t allow them (yet).
Barbara Farfan, Retail Industry Guide, says:
Mike makes a good point about specialization. It's best to prepare yourself for the retail industry of the future, rather than try to fit into the retailing models and practices of the present.- Do you agree with Mike? Share your story.
- Do you disagree with Mike? Give your opinion about why retail education is not important.
- List of schools with advanced retail education and degrees
